THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL AND CIVIL SERVANTS' MOTIVATION

The purpose of our study is to provide a comprehensive up-to-date analysis regarding performance appraisal in Romanian public institutions and to examine whether there can be established a connection between performance appraisal and the factors that motivate civil servants to achieve improved results in their professional activity. The data analysed in our paper was collected from 120 civil servants working in institutions of the Romanian central, territorial and local public administration. The data was analysed and processed using quantitative methods and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Based on the collected data, the respondents were grouped into two internally consistent clusters depending on their performance appraisal experience (high and low quality performance appraisal experience) and the profiles of civil servants in each cluster were delineated. Findings show that performance appraisal is not uniformly implemented in Romanian public institutions, 61,5% of our respondents perceiving it as an activity that lacks fairness and transparency, which does not contribute to their professional development. Another aspect achieved through our paper is the hierarchy of the factors that mostly influence civil servants work performance categorised into the two clusters: the ones satisfied and the ones dissatisfied with their performance appraisal experience. Our paper brings into academic discussion the necessity to design and put in place an improved performance appraisal system for civil servants in Romanian public institutions, aligned with the practices and objectives of performance management.